


Barnstorming: Explanations

by Telesilla



Series: Barnstorming [6]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Baseball, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/pseuds/Telesilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Peach here is what we call a Sensitive. He's not seeing things that aren't there; he's just seeing things very few people can see.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barnstorming: Explanations

**Author's Note:**

> Because the phrase "Western Au" leads to certain expectations, I haven't used it here although this takes place in what was thought of as the West at the time.

  
  
Milky Way -- source: [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milky_Way_Night_Sky_Black_Rock_Desert_Nevada.jpg)  


  


Pence is in his nightshirt when he answers his door, but he doesn't look like he's been sleeping.

"We need to talk," Buster says, pushing his way into the room, Tim on his heels.

"Please," Pence says, stepping back. "Do come in."

"Don't mind if we do," Tim replies, leaning against the door once it's closed. "Why did you search our room?"

"Was your room searched? Because if it was, it wasn't me."

"Don't," Buster says as Pence's face takes on a blurry, watery look. "I know you're lying."

Pence looks at him for a long moment. "Yes," he finally says. "I think you do. The question is, how?"

"Never mind that," Buster begins.

"Do you see something? A color around me or a shimmer across my face?"

The question startles the truth out of Buster. "A shimmer. Like water or what you see in the distance on a hot day."

"And you see shadows around Belt and Bum, right?"

"How did you know?"

"I heard you two talking this afternoon behind the bandstand." When Buster glances over at Tim, Pence waves a hand. "I don't really care about that--you two, I mean. What I care about is what you're seeing."

"Things that aren't there," Buster says, still looking at Tim. "Hallucinations, right Tim?"

Tim shakes his head. "Let's not, not now," he says. "I want to hear what he has to say."

"They're not hallucinations."

Buster wants to believe him, wants to believe that he's not losing his mind, but he's not sure he can. "If they aren't, why did they start after I got hurt? When I was given the morphine." That is, he thinks, not quite a lie; it's just not all of the truth.

"How bad was your actual injury? Did you...was there a moment when you seemed to step back and see yourself?"

The question makes Buster's stomach churn, makes him wish he could just not think about, but of course he remembers. He remembers the pain and how, until they'd tried to move him, he'd been sure he was standing on home plate watching someone else claw at the dirt. Even the memory aches and just for a moment he longs for the easy oblivion of morphine. 

And then Tim reaches out and rests a hand on his shoulder. "Yes," Tim says to Pence and it's oddly comforting to hear the strain in his voice, like it's not an easy memory for him either. "He told me later."

"Before that, could you tell when people were lying?"

"Sometimes," Buster says. "But not often and it wasn't as obvious as it is now."

"Did you ever see things that the people around you couldn't see? When you were very young?"

"A few times. But it frightened me and when I told my parents, they told me none of it was real. Eventually I stopped seeing things."

Pence nods, as if all this is completely normal and makes perfect sense. "You aren't losing your mind," he says. "You're not going insane."

Buster just looks at him, still not ready to believe what he's hearing. 

"Those shadows you see around Belt and Bum are ghosts."

"Ghosts aren't real," Tim says.

"Do you know that for a fact?" 

"It's superstition...."

"What about Pagan?" Buster says, talking over Tim. "What about him?"

"I don't know." Pence frowns. "What do you see?"

Next to him Tim is making a skeptical noise, but most of Buster's attention is on Pence. "The best way I can describe it is that sometimes I see his face twice, like two drawings laid over each other. It doesn't quite match up."

"That's very interesting. I've never heard of anyone seeing something like that."

"Stop," Tim's voice is firm. "You need to stop hinting and tell us what you think is happening to Buster."

"Fine," Pence says. "Peach here is what we call a Sensitive. He's not seeing things that aren't there; he's just seeing things very few people can see. Think of him as someone who has unusually good vision and can see further than most people can."

"So you're saying what he's seeing is real."

"Yes."

"Do you see these things?" Buster asks.

Pence shakes his head. "Only sometimes. I know Bum and Belt have ghosts because I can feel them."

"Oh for God's sake!" Tim says, throwing his hands up in the air. "Next thing you know, we'll be holding a seance."

"Given what he saw earlier today," Pence says, "that would be a very bad idea."

"This is ridiculous."

"Would you rather keep believing I'm crazy?" Buster says, turning his full attention on Tim. 

"It's not...I was there, Buster. I saw what you went through. A man goes through that and you don't expect him to...." Tim sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "You don't expect him to come out the other side whole. I never thought you were insane. I thought you were ill."

The room is too small and suddenly there are too many people in it. Buster turns and reaches for the door. 

"Buster...."

"No. Not right now. I can't. Not now."

"Buster," Tim says again.

"Let him go," Pence says. He looks at Buster. "I won't ask him anything you don't want me to know."

"I don't fucking care. I can't be here...." He doesn't even know why, just that it's suddenly more than he can handle.

The rooming house is on the edge of town; the dirt road comes to an end a hundred yards or so away from the front door. When Buster reaches the long prairie grass, he keeps on walking. Part of him wants to walk until he can't walk any more, until he's lost out here. He recognizes the feeling; it's what drove him to form this team and take them on the road. It's stupid, of course. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference why he's the way he is; he'll never be able to outrun it.

He comes to a stop in a spot where the grass is shorter and sits down. He used to do this as a boy; when things got to be too much, he'd go out into the fields and try to leave everything behind. Now, just like he did then, he leans back on his elbows and looks up at the stars. They're somehow bigger out here without hills or trees to block them; it's nothing but stars until the sky meets the earth far away on the horizon. 

It's easy, when faced with the heavens, to think of nothing else. Buster stares up at the bright river of the Milky Way and wonders how it all works, how many stars there are and if they go on forever or just look like they do. He was never one for God--not after he realized that sometimes preachers lie--but now he can't help thinking that all this didn't just happen for no reason.

Only that means he didn't just happen for no reason and what goes on in his head didn't just happen for no reason.

He hears the hissing of someone walking through the grass but it's not Tim and he's pretty sure it's not Pence, so he just waits. 

"I was going back to my room," Belt says, sitting down next to him. "Saw you leave in a hurry."

"I needed to get away."

"Looked like. You want me to leave?"

"Do you have...has someone died near you?" The minute Buster says it, he wants to take the words back.

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

Belt sounds genuinely curious, not angry, and that gives Buster the courage to ask. "Do you know you have ghosts around you?"

"Yeah," Belt says, his voice matter of fact. "It's a comfort to me; they're the only kin I have left in the world."

"You...you know?"

"I can't see them most of the time. But...." He pauses. 

"It's all right," Buster says. "You don't have to tell me."

"I know when they're with me." After taking a long deep breath, Belt goes on, his voice soft. "It's my daddy and Momma and Charlie, my brother. He was only two when the flood came. I was ten and in town at school. Our teacher didn't let us leave town during the storm and after...we never found them, but I knew they were gone."

"I'm sorry." It sounds ridiculously inadequate even as Buster says it. 

"At first I thought they were angry 'cause I didn't die, but then, I somehow figured they weren't. Not at me at least." He falls silent and they just sit together for a long moment. "Only one other person ever saw them. Really saw them, I mean."

"I don't see them. Not exactly. All I see is shadows."

"How long?"

"Since a couple days after I met you. I don't see them all the time, just now and then."

"Huh."

The silence is longer this time and it gives Buster time to think about how Pence was right. How he's not crazy or even ill, as Tim put it. "Do you see anything else besides them?" he finally asks Belt.

"No. But this girl in Tulsa, the one who saw them? She saw other stuff too; said she had all her life. You?"

"A little when I was a kid but mostly after I got hurt. They put me on morphine and I started seeing all kinds of things." He sighs and keeps talking; after what Belt told him, he feels like he owes Belt something. "Took me about a year after I healed up to stop taking it. I just couldn't, even though the things I saw scared me half to death."

"I hear that can happen," Belt says. "Must have been hard to quit."

"It was." Buster wants to finish the story, but it's not just his story to tell. "And after, I kept seeing things. Not as much and usually not as strange." Only lately, he thinks, it's getting strange again.

"Is that why you're out here tonight? Evelyn, that girl in Tulsa, she said it got crowded in her head sometimes."

"No. I've been thinking the morphine made me crazy and then tonight, Pence told me it wasn't that."

"He's an odd one. I can't figure him out."

"He says he can feel your...." Buster trails off and gestures vaguely.

"Call 'em what they are; it's all right. He hasn't said anything to me, but I don't care if he knows." 

"How can you be so easy about it?"

"I've had most of my life to get used to them. And, you move around as much as I do, you learn that there's some strange stuff in this world. Things they don't teach you in school, things that aren't in the Bible."

"It was almost easier to think I was crazy." The words surprise Buster, but he knows they're the truth.

"It's when everyone else thinks you're crazy," Belt says. "Then it gets hard."

He owes Tim an apology, Buster thinks. At least Tim thought it was the addiction and not insanity; he was never trying to humor Buster, just help him.

"I guess I should go back," he finally says.

"Hard to when the stars look like this. Like you could just fall up into them." Belt stretches out on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. "Think I'll stay out here for a while."

"All right." Buster gets to his feet. "And Belt...Brandon? Thanks."

Tim's by himself in their room; he's sitting cross-legged on the bed sewing a button onto one of his shirts. When Buster comes in, Tim gives him a wary look.

"I'm sorry...."

"I'm sorry...."

They both pause and then Buster sits down on the bed next to Tim. "At least you didn't think I was crazy."

"Thinking you were sick doesn't seem much better than that." Tim sighs. "I don't know what to make of all of this."

"Would it help if I told you that Belt knows all about the shadows I see? I just talked to him, he says he has ghosts."

"I don't know if that helps at all. But that's not the important thing. Does it help you?"

"Knowing I'm not insane? Knowing that it's not the lingering effect of the morphine? Knowing that there are ghosts out there and maybe other strange things as well?" Buster rubs the back of his neck. "Some. It helps some. Belt said he knew a girl who saw things too."

"Of course he knew a girl." They exchange rueful smiles. 

"But I'm not the only one and that has to mean something."

"After you left, Pence said he might be able to help you control what you see. He also wants to talk to you about the things you see that aren't ghosts."

Buster's been trying not to think about those things. "Did he say anything about the laudanum?"

"Just that he thinks it helps you calm down and then, when you're calm, you can bring it under control. I told him...."

"What?"

"I told him that you're not addicted to it; that you only use it when you see things. He says that you should take it if you need it, at least until he can help you." Tim finishes sewing the button on and threads the needle carefully though the fabric of his small sewing kit. "I'm sorry you thought I was just indulging you."

"I'm sorry I thought that too." 

"I'm not just with you because I feel sorry for you. Maybe at the beginning, but not after. Not any more."

"And I'm not just with you because you stayed with me through that time. Don't ever think that I'm not grateful, because I am. But it isn't just gratitude."

They're both dancing around the words, but Buster's never figured out how to say them. Maybe men don't, he thinks. Maybe he just needs to show Tim how he feels. 

"You done with your mending?" he asks, sliding an arm around Tim's waist.

"I could be," Tim says, folding up his sewing kit. "There are a few tears in my uniform...."

"Your uniform," Buster says, leaning in to nuzzle Tim's neck. "Is downstairs waiting to be washed in the morning."

"Oh, so it is." He turns a little and kisses Buster. "Just tell me what you want...anything."

"You," Buster says. "I want you to fuck me." The word, used like that, still makes him blush a little, which is funny, given that he probably hears it a hundred times a day or more. But this is different.

"That sounds perfect," Tim says and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> How does Brandon Belt manage to worm his way into everything I write? No, that's okay, I know the answer to that. Also, for some reason, fading to black instead of writing graphic sex seems like the right thing to do here. Finally, I should mention that "Peach" was a common nickname for ball players from Georgia.


End file.
